Move, not copy, items between collections

2
  • AdrianM

    Dan Stillman Nov 23rd 2011

    "The mouse cursor should consistently display the [+] modifier for all the copy operations for clarity to the user."


    Already done.


    This is **simply**...**not**...**true**!! How has this been missed for 2 years?

    Here in 2013, I see no "+" symbol when I drag an item from one "collection" to another (...unless I hold [Ctrl], but that changes **nothing**. It is always a copy regardless).

    Does this work on some computers but not others? (Windows 7 here)

    ----

    Of course the right way to do this would be to always show either a "+" or a "→" ("->" if you can't see the arrow) depending on whether a copy or move will happen if the user releases the mouse button.

    This is especially important if you are going to go against the folder (hierarchy) metaphor!

    ...and despite the comments "The default metaphor in Zotero is "collection" and "this isn't modeled after Windows/File folders" in some of the posts above...
    The icons are clearly **manila folders**!
  • DWL-SDCA
    edited July 12, 2013
    Holding down the left mouse button and dragging one or more items from the center column will always* show a + sign when the cursor moves into the left column. The + sign does not appear until the cursor reaches the left column. So, if you click and drag from the far right of the center column you will need to drag further to get the + sign to appear. When you see the + sign you can drag the record(s) up or down in the left column and drop into the collection you choose. The collections become highlighted as your cursor moves over them.

    If you don't like the iTunes metaphor, think of a library card catalog or OPAC. You have a book on a shelf in the library. That book has several associated cards Title, Author, and Subject. There are likely to be several subject cards. Each of these cards will be housed in different physical drawers in a cabinet or folders in an OPAC. Another way of visualizing this is using the Windows Shortcuts model. You can have one file in one directory but have shortcuts to that file in any directory(ies) that you want.

    All Zotero records are housed in the library. You can have pointers to any Library record in one or more collections or subcollections. If you choose, a record in your Zotero library can be in zero collections.

    *This works in the FF and standalone Zotero versions on all recent Windows and Mac OSs.
  • dstillman
    edited July 12, 2013
    AdrianM: http://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#be_civil

    Beyond that, yes, this works on some systems. It works for me on OS X and Linux. It looks like it's not working in Windows 7. [Edit: Though DWL says it's working for him.] That may be a Firefox bug, or the result of something different we're doing on Windows. Issue created.
  • dstillman
    DWL: What are the Windows/Firefox versions where you see the "+"? I don't on Win7 with Fx22.
  • DWL-SDCA
    Our Windows 7 machine is using FF ESR 17.0.3
  • EStrunz
    Somewhat of a tangent, but it does take some "getting used to" when moving towards the collections system from a file folder background. But I think it's very much worth the learning curve. For folks looking for a "move but not copy" option, are you familiar with Zotero's "recursive folder" hidden preference? Enabling it will allow a folder to show all items contained in itself AND any child folders. Not sure if it helps, but thought I should throw it out there.
  • AdrianM
    @Dan Stillman: Before I posted, the most visible message to someone scanning through this thread (due to the quoting and the link) was your post stating that a "+" appears for all impending copy operations. What you chose to take as incivility was just an attempt to draw attention to the fact that this is not the case.

    I did not want anyone to assume that that is true. The folder-tag interface situation is confusing enough without sending people who come here for answers away with incorrect information. I hope you can understand the motivation for a bit of emphasis.

    I completely appreciate, now, that fact that this is a problem being worked on (and I further very much appreciate that you are one of the people doing work on it), but you have to understand that I, like any user, cannot see what the software should be doing, but only what it does. Given that, on top of the fact that two years had passed between your post and mine and that I am using a very popular OS and browser, I hope you can see why I would not have guessed that this was a bug (even though I did explore that and qualify my post as being for Windows 7) but instead saw this as something missed for a long time. Regardless (bug or not), I think casual readers of this thread deserve to get the correct impression of what the software they are running really does.

    (By the way, are you saying this is a recent bug, or has this really existed and been missed for 2 years?)

    @DWL-SDCA: Thank you for the tip. My standard use-case is to drag from the middle window to the left window, and even then (dragging to left window), no "+" ever appears. This is with FireFox 22.0, and was also the case before my long-delayed update from FireFox 17 or so.
  • adamsmith
    in terms of "civility" I assume that Dan talked about bold font, stars, sentences emphasized with interspersed periods etc. That's just not necessary and distracts from the real issue you reported, which is perfectly legitimate and would have gotten attention without any ornamentation ;-).
  • dstillman
    AdrianM: Your post essentially implied that I was lying when I said this was fixed and that we were incompetent for missing this for years. From the page I linked to: "sometimes you're the only person experiencing a particular problem". When reporting issues, just calmly explain the problem you're facing and we'll look into it.
  • AdrianM
    @Dan Stillman: I was implying neither of those things. It's important to me to point that out. Please try not to assume the worst in people.

    When I said "missed" I was thinking of users. The only thing I was implying was that the rate or quality of feedback from users on this was low. This could be due to users not noticing the discrepancy, due to users not minding it enough to bother reporting it, due to the feedback mechanism being difficult to get people to use in general, due to a small user base, or some combination of those factors.

    As for developers I have only ever said that I very much appreciate your work.
  • RintzeRintze
    @Dan, @adamsmith: should we rename the "Be Civil" heading of http://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines#be_civil to something more neutral like "Etiquette"? A significant fraction of users show indignation at what they perceive as being called out as incivil.
  • dstillman
    edited July 17, 2013
    Good call. Done. (I added an invisible named anchor, so existing links will continue to work.)
  • joycerobbins
    Another vote for a "move" feature. Thanks.
  • ijvm
    Suggestion: why not a window or popup to manage collections, e.g. via check boxes, for one or several items? It would be more powerful and elegant.

    (Wish from an user with +1500 items, +30 collections, and dying for this issue to be addressed...)
  • dstillman
    I've implemented moving items between collections, using the platform-default modifier keys (Cmd-drag on OS X, Shift-drag on Windows/Linux), for Zotero 4.1. The changes are a bit too deep to do this safely on the 4.0 branch.
  • dstillman
    It seems to work, so I've backported the modifier-key move to the 4.0 branch. You can now try it out in the 4.0 Beta. Start a new thread if you come across any issues, and be sure to clarify that you're using the beta version. (It doesn't currently support the modifier key for cross-library drags, just collection drags. I'll see if I can implement it for cross-library drags soon.)
  • jmiserez
    It works! And FYI, this is now in the official release as well.

    I am running the Zotero Standalone 4.0.22 (not a beta) on Linux and am able to press Shift+Drag to move items. As mentioned above, for Apple users this will be Cmd+Drag.

    I have added this information to the wiki at https://www.zotero.org/support/collections_and_tags#collections
  • gcevolani
    Still doesn't work for me on Win7, both with the standalone (4.0.23) and with the FF version (4.0.23.1).

    I add my vote for the "move" feature.

    Many thanks for this great piece of software.

    Gus
  • jmiserez
    Hi Gus,

    Note that moving only works if you have selected a collection already. You cannot move something from e.g. "My Library" to a collection, there only copying works.

    Have you tried moving between collections and not from "My Library"?
  • gcevolani
    Many thanks for the quick answer, and sorry for the hasty question.

    Yes, it works perfectly! Only, the "+" sign doesn't disappears when Shift is pressed, and this is probably the reason (Win habit!) why I didn't realize that it worked.

    Many thanks again,

    Gus
  • pessinaflorent
    Hello
    many thanks for that possibility: could it be made an hiden pref to always move and not copy
    The "copy when dragging" feature is very disturbing as it's not the default behaviour of the OS when browsing and moving files. And when you relize that it copied the ref, you have a mess to clean: so you need to know about the "hold a key to higlight the other collections" and then go to each one for each ref to do a right click then a "delete from this collection". very heavy
    Indeed the "+" sign when moving warn us that Zotero will "copy" the reference, but all not "informatic friendly" guys in my lab are very confused about it
    so that's why having an hidden pref and/or changing the default behaviour would be great, please.
    thx again
  • jbaart
    "Yes, it works perfectly! Only, the "+" sign doesn't disappears when Shift is pressed, and this is probably the reason (Win habit!) why I didn't realize that it worked."

    Exactly. the "+"-icon needs to change to an arrow icon (as in Windows Explorer) when using the SHIFT modifier.
  • aurimas
    @pessinaflorent, can't speak for other OS, but the default behavior for Windows when dragging files is not always the same (when dragging within the same partition it's move, but when dragging across partitions it's copy). Besides, Zotero file organization does not follow same conventions as the file system of your OS. Zotero uses lists (collections), not folders/directories to organize items, meaning that the same exact item can be in multiple collections. Items are not placed _in_ collections, but are assigned to them. This may not seem like a huge difference, but it does create wrong expectations if thought of incorrectly. Think of it as an iTunes library with playlists.

    @jbaart, we're aware of this bug, but it's not something we can control, since it comes directly from Mozilla's framework. I believe this was reported upstream, but such non-critical bugs may take a long time to address. Saying that it _needs_ to change is a bit strong, but we agree that it should.
  • pessinaflorent
    @aurimas
    Thx for your answer but I do understand the concept behind. I didn't write for me. Let me rephrase:

    *Zotero is for scientist and "librarian". Those people are not used to that behavior of copying. It should be in the interest of zotero to be userfriendly in order to be used by everyone

    *once you realized it's copying it's a mess to clean

    *Zotero use "folder" icon. Do you really think regular people seeing folders, sub folders, folder tree etc will understand that those "collections" will not behave like "folders" or "repertories"?

    The default behavior I see is moving not copying -you can explain to them it's an assignment, but they don't care- so that's why I'm asking for a change in the default behavior. Maybe it's not generalized and the current behavior shouldn't change but that would be great to check that
  • adamsmith
    What default is preferable in a generic way doesn't really matter now. There are hundreds of thousands active Zotero users who have gotten used to the way this works now. We're not going to change that under their feet. (FWIW, having widely taught Zotero, I don't find the concept of collections particularly hard to convey to scientists let alone librarians).
  • pessinaflorent
    that's why I was also suggesting a simple a config var
  • adamsmith
    but that's of no use for the "clueless" users you have in mind. By the time they find the configuration option, they'd also figure out how collections work. And that's certainly less of a hurdle than editing in about:config with a "Be Careful" message prominently displayed.

    Hidden preferences impose a real cost on us to maintain and check on for troubleshooting, so there'd have to be a very compelling case here.
  • pessinaflorent
    you're right; I'm setting up Zotero for those guys so in my mind that's me who is dealing with that
  • aurimas
    I personally don't feel against adding an option to toggle the default behavior between moving and copying. I would actually put it in Preferences -> General. We have some much less frequently used options there and given the amount of interest we've had, I think it could be convenient for a considerable number of users.

    As for the folder icon, I agree that it doesn't help clear up the confusion and I think a better visualization would be welcome, but I'm not aware of something more fitting. Suggestions are welcome.
  • leungks1
    I agree with the previous comments that the icon for moving items from one collection to another (when pressing the shift key in Windows) should be changed to something else, eg, an arrow sign. (Right now, it is the same icon with a + sign as the icon for copying items of one collection to another.)

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